Wild’s Loss Could be Toronto Maple Leafs Gain

The expansion draft is coming up soon and the Toronto Maple Leafs are poised capitalize on other team’s problems.

In the upcoming expansion draft, teams can protect either ten players (three defenseman) or eight players (four defenseman).  In either case they can also protect a single goalie. The Toronto Maple Leafs should be looking to take advantage of teams who can’t meet these requirements due to having too many good players.

Teams like Nashville, Anaheim and Minnesota are ripe for the picking because they have more good players than they can protect. Therefore, potentially at least, the Toronto Maple Leafs could take advantage.

The Wild are a team in big trouble at the draft because the rules stipulate that you must protect players with no movement clauses in their contracts. Therefore Mikko Koivu, Jason Pomminville, Ryan Suter and Zach Parise all need to be protected.

The Wild Are Going to Lose Someone Good

Already they have to protect four players out of ten.  Lets assume they protect  Jared Spurgeon (one of the best defenseman in the NHL), that means that two of Matt Dumba, Marco Scandella and Jonas Brodin would be unprotected.

If they wanted to protect at least four of their good defensemen, they could only protect one more forward, so you can see how they’re pretty screwed.

On forward, the Wild have Nino Niederreiter (one of the NHL’s premier defensive players) Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker – none of which they’d want to lose for nothing.

No matter who they protect, unless they make some trades prior to the draft, the Wild are going to lose a very good player.  Enter the Leafs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have some minor expansion draft problems – it would be nice not to lose Leivo, Rychel, Leipsic or Marincin.  They can, however, risk losing one of those players if they acquire someone much better in their place.

Nino Niederreiter should be their target.  He is 24 years old.  He is a winger who has scored 20+ goals in each of the last three seasons.  Most of his goals are 5v5.  He is known as an elite defensive player.

The odds of his being available are very low.  He would cost a significant piece to acquire.  But it would be worth it.  The Toronto Maple Leafs can definitely use an upgrade in the defensive department, and not just defensemen.

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In my opinion, the Leafs have great forwards, but most of them lack defensive awareness.  Could they acquire Niederreiter and Calle Jarnkrok, that would go a long way towards fixing that problem.

The Wild are in  trouble with the expansion draft and the Toronto Maple Leafs should be looking to take advantage.